Funny Stories

The wonderful world of cycling allows riders to challenge themselves, make friends and explore, furthermore cycling acts as an outlet for freedom of expression. The latter can be attacking on a climb, winning a sprint or the simple act of showing up looking damn fine in some sweet cycling kit. 2016 saw some of the most unique kits released from cycling companies worldwide. From flashy bright designs, to funny logos and everything in between, there was something everyone wanted to buy to suit their riding style as well as their personality out on the road. Here are a few of the best cycling kits of 2016.

A Few of The Best Cycling Kits of 2016

MAAP

MAAP was one of the biggest Instagram sensations of the year and produced some of the best cycling kits of 2016. MAAP is keen on the geometric shapes and thick blocks of colors. MAAP is also the title sponsor of the Continental team State of Matter MAAP. MAAP Tilt Jersey

La Passione

La Passione is an Italian company that does simple, yet sleek cycling kit designs. Their stuff is top-end quality, affordable and minimalist. Summer Square Ciclamino Jersey

Team Dream

This California based cycling kit company has a super cool west coast style in the form of funny logos and playful colors that many other companies have since adopted. Team Dream has some of the best cycling kits of 2016 because of their chubby bobcat logo sneaking its way onto all the clothing as well as their large line of on point accessories like socks, vests and hats. Team Dream Purple Compression Bib

Rapha

A best cycling kits of 2016 list would simply not be complete without the addition of something from Rapha. Rapha is known for its high quality, tight race-ready designs, comfortable clothing and how freaking cool it looks. Rapha is very popular on social media making most riders jealous with its beautiful photography of people riding in amazing locations. Rapha is also one of the main sponsors for the UCI pro team Canyon/SRAM. Canyon/SRAM Core Jersey

Attaquer

Attaquer’s style is a blend of out-there and attention-drawing, yet doing so in a good-looking way. Their kits are some of the best of 2016 because they will compliment the rider looking to wear something different from the norm and to look fantastic while doing it. Attaquer utilizes a lot of camo and bright colors, and has a really kick-ass logo of a skull with its tongue sticking out while wearing a bike helmet. Attaquer Core Brush Blue Jersey

The look good, feel good principle not only applies in the work place, but also onto the bike. With some of the best cycling kits of 2016, you will not only let your own personality shine through, but you will look pretty killer winning the Saturday bunch sprint, or simply sipping coffee afterwards in some of these bright, colorful and uniquely designed kits.

This past summer saw more people than usual staring at their phones while walking through parks, streets, as well as into traffic. In fact there were thousands of people running around being guided by their smartphones playing the newest app sensation Pokemon Go.

Tapping into people’s childhood memories, Pokemon Go is a game requiring you to actively go and catch em all (all the Pokemons that is). However, time to get a competitive edge. Enough with the running down Poke characters, time to up the ante and start biking and Pokemon Go -ing to track down more of those Pokemons faster.

What is Pokemon Go?

Pokemon Go is an app for smart phones that uses the players GPS technology making the player track, locate and catch the Pokemon creatures. It is an artificial reality game where players create their own avatar and the game makes players actively walk, run, or in this case bike, down the next Pokemon they need to catch. Pokemon Go was released in July of 2016 and quickly became one of the most popular apps worldwide.

Why Play Pokemon Go?

Pokemon first became popular in the mid nineties with kids collecting and trading the cards in an effort to collect all the Pokemons. At elementary schools recesses and lunches would see swarms of kids battling and trading the cards. It got to the point where many schools banned Pokemon cards to avoid fights and distractions. Pokemon cards were often sold behind locked glass cabinets at stores because they were such a hot commodity! So the answer to why play: nostalgia. Most people have since sold off or given away their cards, so it is a blast from the past to be able to go outside and actively chase down your memorable Pokemon characters.

Biking and Pokemon Go!

Pokemon Go is a competitive game, so why not look for that extra edge and attempt to catch them all faster?! Pokemon Go using a bicycle can be done with only a couple limitations. Firstly you will need to get a smartphone mount for your handlebars. Secondly, your phone battery tends to drain quickly when playing the game so an external battery pack may be necessary to attach to a pannier if you want to play for a considerable amount of time. Thirdly it is best to set the phone to vibrate when a Pokemon appears on the map, so you can feel the vibration through the bars while keeping your eyes on the road!

Safety for Playing Pokemon Go on Bicycle

Biking and Pokemon Go at the same time can be dangerous if you try and look at your phone while still riding

Keep your speed under 15km/hr or 9.5mph

Make sure to scan your surroundings before pulling over and stopping to look at your screen to catch to Pokemons

Do not look at your screen while riding. You will likely hit another cyclist, car, pedestrian or stop in traffic

Get off your bike to trap the Pokemon.

As usual the bike makes everything better and that definitely goes for biking and Pokemon Go. So time to rig up a phone mount, battery pack and maybe get some cool half finger gloves just like Ash had, and you will be on your way to catching all the Pokemons!

Have you ever had the urge to wear your cycling kit to work and avoid all the changing in and out of cycling clothes to work attire? With some laced cycling shoes you still won’t be able to, with your cleats click-clacking underneath you, but you will look like you belong at the office. Laced cycling shoes are the newest-retro fashion statement at the moment, and there are plenty of laced cycling shoes available on the market today.

The Laces

Similar to running shoes, laced cycling shoes have 6-7 eyelets and require you to tie a bow and double-knot it before heading out the door. These shoes offer an old-school European look while providing you with some stiff, lightweight performance footwear. And best of all, they look like a super cool pair of shoes so they can complement any street attire and even impose as work shoes.

The Laced Cycling Shoes

Laced cycling shoes are easy to micro-adjust, with 7 different pressure points, compared to the typical three straps most cycling shoes come with. They are durable in the elements and very lightweight with their only drawback being you cannot tighten them while you ride. There are several companies making these awesome shoes and thus many different colors and designs to choose from.

Giro has several different lines of the Empire including their SLX with full carbon sole and lightweight leather upper, their full reflective model, a women’s specific model, as well as their mountain bike laced shoe. Giro Empires come in a variety of colors, as well as laces so you can fully customize your shoes to match your personality.

This Italian company no doubt has recreated a laced cycling shoe to go with their trendy cycling clothing line. The 1976 Classics come in several different color options as well as fabric choices ranging from suede, leather and synthetic.

A Stylish Pair of Cycling Shoes

While you may never feel like running off your bike, at least with these shoes you will look as if you can. Laced cycling shoes are a fantastic way to gain a competitive edge and to look pretty flashy while doing it!

Part of being a MTB dirtbag is mooching off someone when you see a good thing come your way. I gave Bruno the night off and took a friend up on the offer to stay at their place. Pretty sweet spot if I do say so myself! The problem with Bruno I’ve discovered is that the back is simply 3 inches too short leading to ‘the dripping faucet’ effect. No matter how tired you are, the smallest thing(such as 3 inches short of leg room) can keep you painstakingly awake.

Cranbrook

The carnival that is SingleTrack 6 moved 100km down the road from Fernie to Cranbrook which offered a complete 180 from the previous days. The trail today was very dry(like the Okanagan desert) offering punchy climbs and slightly less elevation gain(thank god). Dry, loose, dusty, and rocky trails were on the menu, and 30 degree heat! (86F)

The race started in waves today and because of my bonkings, and broken chain I was relegated to the second group start(of five). This proved to be a blessing in disguise as the pace was redlined, but not puke in your mouth redlined. After the first fantastic decent I managed to grab the head of the pack and didn’t have to deal with any dust, which was a major factor today.

To be honest I thought today was going to be a weak link of the race. I imagined long hot climbs, with boring at best singletrack. This was not the case whatsoever. As lush and green as Fernie was…Cranbrook provided dry, hot dusty trails with great flow. The climbs were punchy and I was left with a shit-eating smile on my face throughout the race. There was a lot of single track today that made up 44km of riding.

Except for when I bonked the worst I ever have my whole life.

I didn’t know it was possible to ride the last 5km that slow. There were a good 5 punchy climbs within that 5 km and I had to walk most of them. I simply couldn’t pedal on my bike. I was absolutely knackered. Probably 25 people passed me. It was terrible! It was like being in a dream where you cant run away from something, but for me I couldn’t make it to the finish line. Terrible. I immediately drank 13 glasses of coke as soon as I got in the pit and flailed miserably into the shade of a nearby tree like a giant man-baby.

Whats with the timed decent?

I need to have a Don Cherry moment here. The timed decent was not a decent at all. There was a lot of climbing within it. If you have a ‘timed decent’ there shouldn’t be any uphill; simple, ripping downhill.

Kimberly, British Columbia

We are now in the fantastic small ski town of Kimberly. I love this place. The main drag is pedestrians only, it has great restaurants…beer..cool shops. Its great! A lot of the architecture is modeled after German styles, so it feels like a small Europe. I am actually excited for tomorrow’s ride as the trails around here are fantastic. My legs are ruined and stiff, so whats another 3 days eh?

Roads can come with all sorts of dangers. Some are small, some are large, some are easy to avoid, while others aren’t. What’s the most dangerous thing you’ve come across while riding? Snakes, missing man-hole covers, guns, and irate motorists are a few that come to mind.

Man Rides The Smallest Bike In The World…

In the Beginning. . . .

They say that “Necessity is the mother of invention” (although that’s not quite how ‘the Chef’ in “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” described it. . . . . ) however, I digress.

I had been unemployed for a year after completing a diploma in visual arts & finally scored a job at Brisbane airport, which required working the most diabolical shift-hours I have ever known. It also required travelling 25klms each way, which is a neat trick when you don’t own a car. My art teacher, Dave, an avid cyclist, not only told me to “ride a bike” but very kindly loaned me his mountain bike in order to do so.

I hadn’t ridden a bike for something like 20 years, so it was with equal parts enthusiasm & trepidation that I set off for a ‘test-run’. That first ride to the airport took me an hour and a quarter: I wondered if I might die & was any job worth it. From zero kilometres for 20 years to 250klms per week. It made me hurt in places & in ways I had never imagined ! When the people I worked with found out I was riding a bike to & from the airport, at all hours of the day and night, they not only dubbed me ‘Bicycle-Bob’, but laughed & declared I would not last a month. But I persevered.

Three months later, Dave got his mountain-bike back & I upgraded to a flat-bar road bike. Which I thought was some kind of wonderful, that’s a fact. I was, undeniably, thoroughly enjoying myself & not just because I had an income. I was surprisingly fit & simply loving riding empty roads & bike-paths at 2 & 3 o’clock in the morning (or not so empty roads at midday: stupid bloody shiftwork !) As an aside, my personal track-record on the Boondal Wetlands bike-path is 16 spider-webs in the face in one trip; a ‘delight’ you simply cannot experience in a car.

After another few months, Dave introduced me to clip-in shoes. He did warn me that I would hate him for it, (for not having told me about them sooner) & he was right.The difference it made was quite remarkable: not only do you not LOSE any power on the up-stroke, you GAIN it ! And, just for good measure, once you are familiar with it, you can isolate different muscle-groups so that when the ‘up-stroke muscles’ are working, the ‘down-stroke muscles’ can have a rest & flush a bit of lactic acid away. The upshot of which is, you can ride stronger for longer.

And then there’s the DOWN-side: for all this joy, there IS a corresponding bummer: guaranteed. You WILL fail to UN-clip: almost inevitably in front of lots of people. You may wish the Earth would swallow you whole: you may believe embarrassment to be terminal: neither of these things will happen. You will hurt yourself to a greater or lesser degree: maybe a bruise & a bit of bark off: maybe a dislocated shoulder: maybe you’ll get a grass-stain on your shirt. That’s in the lap of the gods. Do not be deterred by this: it shouldn’t happen more than a couple of times.

Six months later: with a respectable tax-refund to splurge & insane urges to also ride on my days off, I lashed out & bought a carbon-fibre road race bike. OMG ! Now it was Dave’s turn to hate me: ah, jealousy. . . . . .

At this point, what had started as a poor-man’s-means-to-commute had evolved into something of an obsession & I found myself riding 40klms to Dave’s place so we could then ‘go for a ride’, generally over Mt. Mee & wherever else took our fancy. Several ales after which I would curse his name as I left his place to ride home. Can’t recommend that, to be honest. I mean, riding a bike half-cut is just plain stupid & dangerous. It also HURTS SO MUCH, having ridden 80 or 100klms, then sitting for an hour or so (& consequently seizing-up) before getting back on the bike for the ride home. Just DON’T do that: OK ?

I have ridden through floods & baking heat; I have crashed; I have sworn at punctures & revelled in miraculous views. I have made friends who share the Joy of good health & positive energy ( & the occasional beer. ) I have scared the shirt off me (to put it politely) whilst screaming downhill at 80kph: I have busted-a-gut to get my butt UP those very same hills. Two years after getting on my bike for the first time in 20 years, I was doing the commute in 35mins. Quite simply; it is THE best addiction one could possibly have. So, if you are even idly contemplating the possibility of taking up cycling, there is only one thing for me to say: get on your bike!

When I was 19 I moved to Marin County California to be a professional sailor (not like the Navy). I raced and maintained sailboats, and also coached. One day while crossing the Richmond bridge I rear-ended the person in front of me. My little white Subaru wagon was probably one of the first casualties of the war on texting while driving. Any-who, with the flick of my thumb I was forced into the world of bicycle commuting. I began cycling more and more on my orange Trek 1000 and finally thought of myself as somewhere between Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver and Lance. I had been mountain biking since I was 11 and even worked in a bike shop for a summer, but this was my first real experience spending a lot of time on a road bike.

One day I was out on a 40 miler with my friend Charlie. We were about 10 miles from home descending into Mill Valley when I hit a big pot hole and blew out my front tire. I quickly pulled over and yanked out my flat kit.

As professional sailing pays about as much as professional roller derby, I had taken a job at REI to subsidize my biking habit by way of shop discounts. Needless to say I had a sweet repair setup. A patch kit, a tube, a few Co2 cartridges and a multi tool all bundled up in a tiny saddle bag. I carried two extra tubes in my jersey because I believe in over preparation and redundancy. Also, I had no option other than to bike everywhere I went. In my mind, a multi-puncture day could, theoretically, leave my 140 pound, spandex clad, frame “clippity clopping” through The Tenderloin at midnight. So, I carried a bunch of tubes.

In a jiffy I used a lever to unseat the tire and took out the tube to have a look. Two flat holes where the rim had compressed the tube against the edge of the pothole – a pinch flat or a “snake bite” as some call it. I put a new tube in, reseated the tire, used a Co2 shooter to fill it up, then packed up my kit.

Charlie and I jumped on our bikes and continued riding down the hill. I began building speed, feeling the warm California sun on my face. Charlie passed me and smiled just as my tire blew out again. Pow! “What the screw?” We had made it all of 90 seconds down the road.

“That sucks” Charlie says to me. I pulled out a second tube and went to work. Charlie spoke up again, “Did you check your tire?” Now, as a mountain biker I knew about pinch flats, but a hole in the sidewall was almost unheard of on a big 2 inch wide tire. What I took away from the comment was “Is there a thorn in it?” What he meant, however, was “Is your tire cut and causing the tube to fail with 110 pounds of pressure in it?” I said “Yeah, there’s nothing in it” and went about my business speedily putting the other tube in.

Charlie was pretty convinced something was wrong with my tire but for some reason he let me bulldoze him into submission. “I CHECKED THE TIRE THERE’S NOTHING WRONG!” I fumed. I believe I uttered this exact phrase when I used his first and then his second spare tube in a fury of cursing and anger. By the time I needed his first spare we were at the bottom of the hill on the main road that would take us from Mill Valley back to Tiburon. Still only half a mile from the pothole.

You know they say when people get lost in the woods and die it’s not because of one mistake, it’s because of a series of bad decisions. After the 5th flat Charlie, in his ever calm and wonderful personality, expressed the desire to ride home and grab the car so he could come pick me up. I agreed and let him go but I was determined to beat this stupid bike. Having gone through all my new tubes (and Charlie’s), I patched the slice in the side of one of the old ones. The gash seemed to have appeared to come from nowhere. I was puzzled by the nature of the repeated flats but gave it little thought as I began pumping; my Co2 supply was long gone at this point as well.

After the second patched tube blew I shouted out loud “Screw it.” I had made the decision to ride the last 9.5 miles home on the rim and tire. I stomped on the pedals as the air was rushing out. For those of you who are experienced please don’t judge, I was new to cycling, dumb and full of piss and vinegar. For those of you that are new to cycling, do not EVER try to ride on a busy two lane road with a flat front tire. You will surely end up laying on the ground in a heap staring at the tread of a taxi’s tire about to crush your face.

Anyway, the cab narrowly missed my head and I conceded to the gods of bicycling. “I know you’re trying to teach me something boys but I haven’t the foggiest idea as to what.” Being 20, I didn’t know when to stop and just let things go, or to think for that matter. I pulled off my shoes and began walking toward home.

About 20 minutes later Charlie showed up and we tossed my bike in the car. I told him about my attempt to ride on the flat tire and he laughed. He suggested I have a good look at the tire when I got home. “Yeah, maybe you’re right”. Later that night I found the gash in the sidewall. Seemed like an awful lot to go through just to learn about sidewall gashes but at that time in my life I had a habit of doing everything the hard way.